Sacred Mushroom of Visions

by Ralph Metzner

  Ceramic figurines, depicting singers and drummers, with mushroom-shaped head protrusions. Southern Mexico, dated from the second century C.E.

  The suppression of the visionary mushroom cult by the Spanish clergy was effective and complete. For four centuries it disappeared from the memory of the general and scholarly public, so much so that at the beginning of the twentieth century some identified teonanácatl with the peyote cactus, and some questioned whether such a practice had ever existed. After Wasson rediscovered in the 1950s the practice of mushroom divination in the person of the famous Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina, it emerged that there were still practicing shamans among the Mazatec, Chinantec, Chatino, Mixe, Zapotec, and Mixtec of Oaxaca; the Nahua and possibly Otomi of Puebla; and the Tarascan of Michoacan. The Mazatec in the mountains of Oaxaca probably have the largest number of mushroom-using healers, though they are disappearing. There are three accounts in this book of Euro-Americans partaking of the mushrooms in small circles of people in the Mazatec country, under the guidance of Maria Sabina or another curandero.

  According to anthropologist and Mayanist Christian Rätsch, who has made extensive studies of psilocybe and other shamanic entheogens, the Mixe people of Oaxaca (who, according to the linguistic evidence, may be descended from the Olmec, the oldest Mesoamerican culture) used several different species of psilocybe mushrooms in their religious life. From these cultures we have strange clay figurines (seen on the previous page), with a drum between the legs, and mushroom-like protrusions sticking out from the head on both sides; they look almost like antennae for cosmic visions and inspirations, which is a suggestive metaphor for the teonanácatl mushroom experience.

  MARIA SABINA, R. GORDON WASSON, AND ALBERT HOFMANN

  The encounter in 1956 between R. Gordon Wasson and Maria Sabina created an amazing bridge across times and cultures. Wasson participated in one of her all night mushroom veladas (vigils) and then published an account of his experiences in LIFE magazine in 1957. This opened Western minds and eyes to the incredible riches of knowledge and beauty in the ancient traditions of the sacred visionary mushroom. The world became aware of this wise woman—sabia—as a living representative of a lineage of shamanic healers, reaching back to pre-Conquest times, a lineage and tradition that had been presumed extinct. At the time he met her, Maria Sabina was a sixty-year-old traditional healer living and practicing her art secretly, known only to very few, in the tiny Mazatec village of Huatla de Jimenez in the state of Oaxaca.

  R. Gordon Wasson was an immensely erudite scholar, banker, and amateur mycologist, who, with his Russian-born wife, Valentina, traveled the world seeking evidence in language, myth, and folklore of the connection between psychoactive mushrooms and the origins of religion. The Wassons observed a deep-seated attitudinal distinction between mycophobic and mycophilic cultures. Most Anglo-Saxons and Nordics were mycophobic (mushroom-fearing), whereas Slavic and Mediterranean peoples were examples of mycophiles (mushroomlovers). The Wassons learned that the fly-agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) played a role in Siberian shamanism. They speculated that it might be the legendary soma of Vedic religion (Wasson 1968). Following the trail of Spanish accounts of the Aztec mushroom cult and the reports of a few anthropologists, he found the first strong support for his thesis when he became the first non-Indian to partake of the ancient mushroom ritual. In a paper on “The Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico—An Inquiry into the Origins of the Religious Idea Among Primitive Peoples,” Wasson wrote: “As man emerged from his brutish past, thousands of years ago, there was a stage in the evolution of his awareness when the discovery of a mushroom (or was it a higher plant?) with miraculous properties was a revelation to him, a veritable detonator to his soul, arousing in him sentiments of awe and reverence, and gentleness and love, to the highest pitch of which mankind is capable . . . It made him see what this perishing mortal eye cannot see” (Wasson 1963).

  Thomas Riedlinger, in his essay in this book, provides a more detailed account of the story of the founder of ethnomycology. The Wassons recorded one of the veladas and published the text of Maria’s chants in Mazatec, with Spanish and English translations, as Maria Sabina and her Mazatec Mushroom Velada. Some years later an autobiographical account of the life of Maria Sabina appeared in Spanish by Alvaro Estrada, a Mazatec-speaking friend from her home village. This was published in an English translation in 1981 as Maria Sabina—Her Life and Chants and surely represents a document unique in world literature, in that it is the first-person account of a shamanic practitioner speaking of her life, worldview, and practices that go back to the paleolithic depths of time.

  Maria Sabina, mushroom curandera, in 1981, in Huatla. (Photo by Bonnie Colodzin; courtesy of Richard Yensen)

  Maria Sabina related that she discovered the magical effects of the mushrooms when as a seven or eight-year-old child playing in the woods with her sister, she ate some and found herself in a realm with lots of “children” (los niños), who talked to her and played with her with great good humor and laughter. She knew that her father and grandfather used these mushrooms in healing. Ever after, she referred to the mushroom spirits as “los niños” and as she grew up she learned to consult with them when she needed help in healing. They might tell her about certain herbs at a particular place that she should find and apply to the patient. She became known as a gifted curandera, and devoted herself fully to her vocation—except during her two marriages, when she was raising her children.

  “When I became a widow for the second time, I gave myself up for always to wisdom, in order to cure the sicknesses of people and to be myself always close to God. One should respect the little mushrooms. At bottom I feel they are my family. As if they were my parents, my book. In truth I was born with my destiny. To be a Wise Woman. To be daughter of los santos niños (the saint children)” (Estrada 1981).

  During her veladas, Maria Sabina would sing and chant for hours, with percussive clapping and slapping her hands against her body, praying for the sick person, calling to the holy little ones, los santos niños. She would invoke the names of Christian saints and also the spirits of her native land, like the Lord of the Mountain and spirits of nature. Her words were mostly Mazatec, but sometimes included unknown words or repeated syllables, a kind of spirit language similar to that found among shamans around the world.

  Her chanted statements would have the form of a first person declaration: “I am . . . woman, says” at the end. The syllable t’so, “says,” is a kind of impersonal affirmation commonly found in trance mediums that indicate that it is not she, the personality that is saying these things, it is the mushrooms. Here are a few samples of her lines that give a sense of the awe and mystery that emanated from this tiny, humble woman, transformed into a powerful healer-shaman during her mushroom trance (Estrada 1981, pp. 105–190):

  I am a woman who waits, says

  I am a daylight woman, says

  I am a Moon woman, says

  I am a Morning Star woman, says

  I am a God Star woman says . . .

  I am the doctor woman, says

  I am the herb woman, says . . .

  Our woman of light, says

  Our saint woman, says

  Our spirit woman, says . . .

  I am a lord eagle woman, says

  Our woman who flies, says . . .

  Our woman who looks inside of things, says

  You are the saint, says

  You are the saintess, says . . .

  I am a woman wise in medicine, says

  I am a woman wise in words, says

  I am a hummingbird woman, says

  Whirling woman of colors, says

  Woman of the sea, says . . .

  In one particularly powerful vision that Maria had when she was trying to heal her sister, who was very ill, she met beings she called “the Principal Ones, who inspired me with respect . . . of whom my ancestors spoke . . . I knew it was a revelation the saint children were giving me . . . I understood that the mushrooms
were speaking to me. I felt an infinite happiness . . . On the Principal Ones a book appeared, an open book that kept on growing until it was the size of a person . . . It was a white book, so white it was resplendent. One of the Principal Ones spoke to me and said, ‘Maria Sabina, this is the Book of Wisdom. It is the Book of Language. Everything that is written in it is for you. The Book is yours, take it so that you can work.’ . . . At that moment, I began to speak. Then I realized that I was reading the Sacred Book of Language. The Book of the Principal Ones . . . And it’s because the mushrooms are saints; they give wisdom. Wisdom is Language. Language is in the Book. The Book is granted by the Principal Ones. The Principal Ones appear through the great power of the children”(Estrada 1981).

  She realized too that this was a divine or spiritual wisdom book that she was seeing and reading. In her personality she was a peasant woman who never learned to read. In her essence she was a spiritual giant, a sabia, a wise woman: “I am lord eagle woman, says . . . ” After that vision and transmission of spiritual healing, she no longer saw the book “because I already had its contents in my memory.” Her reputation as a healer grew and people came to her from far away with difficult problems, including possession by bad spirits.

  “The mushrooms told me what the remedy was. They advised me what to do to cure them . . . And since I received the Book I have become one of the Principal Ones. If they appear, I sit down with them and we drink beer or aguardiente. I have been among them since the time when they gave me wisdom, the perfect word: the language of God . . .

  “Language makes the dying return to life. The sick recover their health when they hear the words taught by the saint children. There is no mortal who can teach this Language” (Estrada 1981).

  Wasson brought back specimens of the mushrooms that Maria Sabina and other healers used and worked with the great French mycologist Roger Heim to identify them, name them, and publish the results of their findings in the mycology literature. Wasson also contacted Albert Hofmann, who identified the psychoactive principles in the visionary Mexican mushrooms as psilocin and psilocybin.

  R. Gordon Wasson, ethnomycologist, in Mexico, 1955. (Photo by Allan Richardson; courtesy of Thomas Riedlinger)

  Albert Hofmann with mushroom stone. (Photo by Christian Rätsch)

  In 1962 Albert Hofmann and his wife accompanied Gordon Wasson and some other friends on a journey to Mexico to investigate the hallucinogenic plant now known as salvia divinorum. As part of this journey they also went to Huatla de Jimenez, where they met with Maria Sabina. Hofmann provided her with pills that contained the synthetic psilocybin, asking for her evaluation. She agreed to conduct a session with the synthetic tablets. At the end of the ceremony, Hofmann reported: “As we took leave of Maria Sabina and her clan at the crack of dawn, the curandera said that the pills had the same power as the mushrooms, that there was no difference. This was a confirmation from the most competent authority that the synthetic psilocybin is identical with the natural product” (Hofmann 1990). Maria Sabina also remarked that with the help of the tablets she would now be able to conduct mushroom healings even during the seasons when they normally don’t grow.

  This exchange between the traditional shamaness and the modern chemist constituted a respectful completion of the cycle of discovery and an honoring of the ancestral roots of knowledge. It is in marked contrast to the usual exploitative approach of contemporary pharmaceutical science, which seeks to isolate the chemical principles in traditional plant medicines and then proceeds to market those with no regard to the treasury of wisdom maintained by traditional shamans and healers.

  Both Hofmann and Wasson made further profound contributions to our understanding of the role of psychoactive plant substances in the history of culture, especially religion. Working with plant specimens supplied by Wasson, Hofmann was able to identify LSD-like ergot alkaloids (ergine, ergonovine) as the psychoactive principle in several species of morning glories (Ipomea violacea, Turbina corymbosa), which are known to the Aztecs as ololiuhqui and are still used shamanically by contemporary healers among the Mixtecs and Zapotecs (Schultes and Hofmann 1976; Ott 1993). Wasson also went on to write his major work Soma—Divine Mushroom of Immortality (Wasson 1968), which proposed that the legendary soma of Vedic religion was an extract of the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), which is known to have been used in Siberian shamanism. This thesis of Wasson, based on extensive ethnographic and linguistic evidence, has not found widespread agreement among researchers in entheogens, primarily because the experience induced by ingestion of fly agaric mushroom, even by Wasson’s own account, is very mild and hardly comparable to the vivid and dramatic changes caused by tryptamines like those in psilocybe mushrooms. Finally, Wasson and Hofmann again collaborated, this time with Greek scholar Carl Ruck, to put forward the bold theory that the secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the elusive kykeon that was drunk by the initiates, may have been a detoxified extract of ergot, analogous to LSD, on the abundantly growing barley of that area (Wasson, Ruck, and Hofmann 1978).

  CHEMISTRY, PHARMACOLOGY, AND PSYCHOLOGY OF PSILOCYBIN

  Almost all the presently known psychedelic, hallucinogenic, or entheogenic compounds, whether occurring in plants or synthesized, belong to one of two chemical “families”: the phenethylamines (which include mescaline, peyote cactus, San Pedro cactus, MDA, MDMA or Ecstasy, DOB, and others) and the tryptamines (which include DMT, psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD, bufotenine, and others). Readers interested in more details of the chemistry of traditional entheogens and their plant sources, as well as newly synthesized psychoactive substances, are advised to consult the books by Alexander and Anne Shulgin (1991, 1997) and Ott (1993). Dozens of potentially psychoactive tryptamines have in recent years been identified in various plant sources, ranging from phalaris grasses, to acacias and mimosas. K. Trout (2002) gives detailed chemistry information on these discoveries up to the present time. Very few, if any, of these have any shamanic pedigree, i.e., documented use for shamanic healing and divination anywhere in the world. Whether they will prove to have applications in medicine or psychotherapy remains to be seen.

  The chapter in this book by David Presti and Dave Nichols on the neurochemistry and pharmacology of psilocybin gives an overview of current scientific understanding of the intricate structural and functional interrelationships between the psychedelic tryptamine psilocybin and the endogenous tryptamines found in the brain. Of the four main neurotransmitters (norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and dopamine), all of the known psychedelics interact primarily with serotonin. This has been known since the 1950s and is probably the reason for their “cross-tolerance” with each other. Cross-tolerance means that for a period of several hours after ingesting any one of the psychedelics, the individual will be “tolerant,” i.e., experience reduced or no effects, from a normal dose of any of the others. The phenethylamines (e.g., MDMA) in addition affect norepinephrine, which is the neurotransmitter mostly involved with the effects of stimulants such as amphetamine (which is also a phenethylamine). This probably accounts for the more energized, stimulating properties of the phenethylamines as compared to the tryptamines. On the level of subjective experience, this can be observed if one compares the extremely rapid, almost percussive beat of the typical peyote chants, with the more sedate, mellow, and melodic spirit healing songs sung by ayahuasqueros and mushroom curanderas like Maria Sabina.

  Research in the last couple of decades has extended scientific understanding of the complexity and pervasiveness of serotonin in the human brain and nervous systems. Current research has localized the main effect of psilocybin and other tryptamine psychedelics at one receptor site specific from the dozen or more that are receptive for serotonin. Neural circuits that use serotonin as their main neurotransmitter have been found in the limbic-mammalian brain systems that underlie much of our feeling life, especially the basic mammalian emotions (fear, rage, affiliation). Such neural circuits are also found in parts of the brain stem, called reptilian
brain in Paul McLean’s model. These findings are suggestively related to the sense of self-awareness, awareness of our evolutionary animal heritage, and the shamanic sense of connectedness or identification with animal consciousness. Perhaps most provocatively, serotonin has been found to be the main neurotransmitter for the “enteric nervous system,” a system of one hundred million neurons distributed in and around the intestinal tract. This brain system is neuronally almost completely independent of the cerebral cortex. It is thought to be evolutionarily the oldest part of our nervous system (Gershon 1998). My speculation is that the role of serotonin in this brain system, and the possible effects of psychedelic drugs in it, may be the basis for experiences of evolutionary remembering, heightened instinctual or “gut-level” knowledge, and the healing of psychosomatic disturbances possible with psychedelics.

  Serotonin is called a “mood regulator,” bringing both anger and depression back to a central balancing point. Perhaps then, I may be allowed to speculate that it is serotonin that is involved in the “expansion of consciousness,” the heightening of awareness and understanding that can bring about a more balanced emotional attitude. Serotonin may be the neurotransmitter for emotional intelligence or balance.